Bleeding Fiction

As the deadline to respond to UW's Japan Studies program closes in (it's April 15th and keep in mind that my form still has to cross the country via your friends in the US Postal Service...), I've begun to pester the last two programs I need to hear from. I figure they should've responded to me by now...

Today I spoke to the fine people at the University of Arizona. I'll get my official letter in the mail in a week or so, but they were kind enough to send me an email to tell me that I was rejected, so that I could go about making other plans. I appreciate that, even if they should've gotten back to me two weeks ago.

The woman who wrote me the email was even kind enough to tell my why I got rejected. Here, of course, is where I get annoyed. According to the email, I was denied because my "Academic record was not competitive and [I had] low standard test scores." Alright, I'll give them a non-competitive academic record. I was never exactly what you would call an "achiever" in school. I was, to put a not-so-fine point on it, a slacker. That's not to say I didn't do well; I graduated with a 3.25 gpa overall and a 3.5 to 3.75 gpa in each of my major fields. When you consider that the scale only goes up to 4 that's not too shabby. But yeah, they're right: in the world of graduate school applications, that's not competitive.

However, that part about the "low standard test scores?" Bullshit. The only standard test that I took to get into grad school was the GRE, and I made that test my bitch. There are three sections to the GRE. First, analytical. I scored an 800 out of 800. It was literally impossible for me to have done any better. Second, verbal. I scored 760 out of 800. That was better than 96% of the other people who took the test. In what way are these two scores "low?" Am I to believe that my score of 650 out of 800 on the quantitative section of the test, which was only better than 76% of the other people who took the test, did me in? Are they seriously telling me that my math skills weren't good enough to get me into a program that has nothing whatsoever to do with math, but is rather about my ability to understand complex written material and formulate and communicate a written argument?

Further, am I expected to respect the decision of people who confuse the word "standard" for "standardized" and who use phrases such as "the deny reasons" and "you will be receiving" in their communications?

This is, I know, not the first time I've criticized the grammar of the grad school people, but I don't feel I'm unjustified in this. These are graduate-level academic departments at respected universities I'm talking about here. In the program I work in, which brings teenagers who do not speak English as a native language to work at summer camps (and I will be the first to admit that if there's one thing camp is not it is academic), we actually pay a professional to check over our form letters and make sure that we've weeded out things like the passive voice. It's not a hard thing for a person to do.

Alright, I'll stop now. I don't need to hear more of this, much less anyone else.